


Storm

by thomasjeffersonsmacaroni



Series: The Other 51 [20]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Wrestling, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-13
Updated: 2017-02-13
Packaged: 2018-09-22 00:30:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9573911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thomasjeffersonsmacaroni/pseuds/thomasjeffersonsmacaroni
Summary: If the Gulfside Stormtroopers were the nation's army, then they would obliterate their enemy with ease. Too bad they're just their school's overly aggressive wrestling team with a superiority complex bigger than them.And Finn Skywalker, one of its best teammates, wants out.





	

At the end of sixth period, the ringing of the bell was aggressive, and the surge of students towards the doors and out into the hallways was even more so. Tuesdays and Fridays were very aggressive for Finn Skywalker, mainly because of the wrestling meet in the gym that he was heading to.

"General" Armitage Hux had already posted in the Facebook group that the coach had said that they would be training extra hard for next Saturday's match, which would be against an up-and-coming new school called River Ridge and a team that called themselves the "Rebels."

"They're supposed to be really good," Hux's best friend, Ben Solo - _no,_ Finn remembered, he went by that ridiculous nickname Kylo Ren - had said. "Of course, _we're_ the best team in the county, but I watched a video of these guys in action, and they are _ripped._ We'll need to train extra hard if we want to _crush_ them."

That word, _crush,_ had been forced into the brains of Finn's teammates as a reluctant replacement for other, less "appropriate" (Coach's words) ones, such as "slit their throats and laugh as we bathe in their blood," "bash their heads in with a mace," and "shove them off of a cliff." And that was when they were in a _good_ mood. Finn didn't even want to _think_ about what Hux said after he bombed a math test because of his intense Call of Duty session that replaced studying.

"Hey, Eight-Seven. How you doin'?"

Finn's friend, Liang Yang or "Nines," came up behind him and clapped him on the back.

"Ready for the general to order to you to perform murder?" Finn joked, looking over and smiling.

"No kidding. I don't think he's been the same ever since our match against them was first announced. _And_ we don't have that many wrestling team in our county, so we'll see them a lot. That's what Coach says, anyway."

"Oh, boy," Finn sighed. He _really_ didn't want to be them in that moment. He could think of about a million better ways to go than to be assassinated by Kylo Ren at a wrestling match.

 

"Great practice today!" Kylo said a couple of hours later, smiling encouragingly at his teammates. He stopped, though, when Hux's eyebrows furrowed.

"You could have been better. I want each and every one of you to train _every day. Got that?_ "

Finn looked over at Nines, and both of them had to bite their lips to keep from laughing. After a moment of the rest of the team screaming murder while Finn himself stood in tense silence, John, or "Zeroes," stepped forward, hand out.

"All right, guys! Stormtroopers on three!"

Zeroes always led the team in this chant. He was practically a foil to General "We-didn't-come-here-to-make-friends-we-came-here-to-win" Hux.

Everyone put their hands into the circle, and Zeroes continued. "One, two, three..."

" _STORMTROOPERS!_ _"_ everyone screamed at the same time before breaking apart and taking their things.

"See you Monday, Finn," Nines said at the parking lot as the duo broke up and headed to their cars.

As Finn drove, he stared at the road ahead of him and thought. There were only three reasons at this point why he was still on the wrestling team, why he stayed despite going home every day and complaining to his dad about Hux's aggressiveness and general asshattery.

The first was college, and the second and third were Zeroes and Nines. They would both be absolutely _crushed_ if he left the team. And Finn couldn't bear to hurt his friends' feelings in any way.

He sighed as he pressed on the brakes to stop at a red light. His life would have been a lot simpler if he had pulled out the application for tennis.

 

_Armitage Hux posted in Gulfside Stormtroopers Wrestling Team._

Finn picked up his phone and opened the Facebook app. Instantly, he was greeted by a list of partner assignments.

Nines was against someone named William Pava, whose last name Finn recognized from the track-and-field team that his friend Rey had to compete against. Zeroes was to fight someone named Temmin Wexley.

And Finn himself was paired up with someone named Poe Dameron.

With a quick Facebook search, he learned that Dameron had transferred from a school in a different state, where he was known as one of the best players and in fact the captain. Here, he was still among the top rankings, and his team, judging by comments, were confident that he would lead them to victory.

Finn himself was a good wrestler, but he wasn't going to make any assumptions about his opponent from a set of numbers and a photo album of selfies. And he certainly wasn't going to make them from the superiority complex that seemed to plague nearly all of his teammates.

He would have to wait until next Saturday to get an accurate image of who his partner really was.

 

Poe Dameron was _hot._

Finn didn't know why he hadn't realized it while Facebook-stalking him the week before. Maybe he was just not paying attention to him as much, or in a different way. Maybe it was because Dameron's image gallery was covered with selfies, and he was one of those people who defied the laws of time and space by looking better in real life. Or maybe it was a wrestling-uniform, ready-to-fight thing.

Whatever the reason, Finn's eyes found themselves drifting past his teammates' scrunched-up faces and at the warming-up figure of the teen whom he would soon fight for the first time.

They would be in _close proximity._ Rey would probably slide up to him and wink. She was in the crowd somewhere, probably waving her little flags and sitting next to Finn's dad.

"And now, Finn Skywalker from Gulfside will compete against Poe Dameron from River Ridge. Finn, Poe, stand in the middle of the mat and face each other."

"LET'S GO, FINN!"

 _There_ she was. And dressed in Gulfside colors from head to toe, too.

Rey was not exactly the epitome of school spirit. But she had more _Finn_ spirit than anyone he knew.

Dameron held out his hand and smiled, and Finn shook it.

"May the best team win," whispered the Rebel.

 _Good sportsmanship._ Finn nodded and smiled again.

"On the count of three! One, two, three, START!"

The whistle blew. There was a beep overhead that signaled that their time had started.

A flash, and Dameron had the upper hand; half a minute, and he did not, and Finn had a vague idea of what his partner's style was. And with just a few seconds until time was to be called, it was Finn who was pressing Dameron into the ground and grinning triumphantly.

The crowd rioted, but Finn was surprised by the fact that the Rebels were cheering too. And Dameron's handshake before he retreated back to his side of the gym seemed genuine and firm.

  
_Close proximity to each other._

And it had turned out better than Finn had expected. Even if his feelings were still mixed up.

He already knew that he was bi, even if he was only out to his dad and Rey. But the problem was what  _Dameron_ was, how the team would react, what the school - not exactly a liberal paradise - would think about one of its star wrestlers being anything but straight.

The Stormtroopers ended up winning. If Finn was being honest, there was no surprise there. At the end of the game, the team captain, whose name Finn could not remember, came up to Hux and the rest of the team.

"Hey, we're going to Steak'n'Shake. You guys wanna come with?"

"No," snapped Hux. "We don't dine with enemies. Come on, guys, let's go."

As the Stormtroopers left, Finn looked behind him with what he hoped was an apologetic glance.

 

The win, though existent, was narrow according to the score analyses that the team received about a week later. And so Hux decided to work the team both to its limits and to the limits set by the grade-conscious coach, and Finn found himself quickly losing free time to spend with his dad, his Uncle Han and Aunt Leia, and Rey. But regardless of his or anyone's feelings, the Stormtroopers got win after win after win, until the end-of-season awards ceremony came and Gulfside High School was declared victorious.

After that, it seemed as if everything was going to be okay. The team was feeling happy about ending the season on a high note, March was going to finally be a month of freedom, and the district-funded end-of-season banquet was shaping up to be extravagant.

But then, at least in the eyes of the competitive side of the team, tragedy struck.

"The school district is underfunded," Hux read from his phone when the team was huddled together in the gym. "So they're taking money away from our banquet. We'll need to share with... _River Ridge._ "

He slammed his phone down onto his leg and inhaled sharply. Then, he spoke again in a borderline scream.

" _What the fuck?_ _"_

Around the circle were sighs and eyerolls of agreement.

"Of all the schools..."

"They should have taken money from something else. Not our _banquet._ "

"Oh well. We'll just have to not talk to them. We can do this."

How they would manage that, Finn had no idea. And although he had no inclination to pretend that a group of people didn't exist just because they were zoned into a different school, knowing his teammates, they would have his head if he said that.

Finn closed his eyes and opened them again. He would just have to somehow manage.

 

The banquet dress code was formal, so Finn's teammates decided to dress in matching suits and Gulfside color - black, silver, and green - ties. Finn, in an act of frustrated rebellion, opted to wear the Mickey Mouse tie that Rey had gotten him for his birthday instead.

"Good luck," his father said as he dropped him off at the restaurant that had been decided on. "I know you'll have fun. Even if Hux won't."

Finn giggled. He wouldn't put it past him to complain the whole time.

And he did. First, the tie.

"Eight-Seven, where is your Gulfside pride?"

Finn touched his chest. "In here. In my _soul,_ Army. It's in my _soul._ "

"Don't call me Army."

"Oh, I'm sorry. Do you prefer Leggy? Or Footy?"

"Don't sass me, either."

Then, the rebels.

"They're not organized at all. Like, what are they doing? No school colo- _WHY THE FUCK ARE THEY TALKING TO US?"_

"How are you doing?" Temmin Wexley asked, holding a hand out for a shake. Hux glared at it until he put it away.

"Again," Hux growled, "we don't talk to our enemies. So unless you miraculously transform into Gulfside Stormtroopers over the course of several hours, and that is something I highly doubt, stay on _your_ side of the restaurant, and we'll stay on ours. Deal?"

Suddenly, Poe poked out from behind his friend.

"Well," he said, "we were going to ask you fellas if you wanted to come with us to the water park after this, but I think your heads are so far up your asses that you'd drown in a puddle. So invitation retracted."

Finn put a hand over his mouth to stifle a giggle. For the rest of the banquet, he stared longingly across the restaurant and wondered what it would be like to go with them.

And when it was over, and the Stormtroopers went back to their separate cars and drove home, he made a split-second decision that would change his life.

He texted his father not to pick him up. Then, he walked over to the Rebels and asked if they would reopen the water park invitation.

"Oh!" Will Pava exclaimed. "Of course! You're Finn, right?"

"Yeah. Finn. And I'd just like to apologize for my teammates. They're such _jerks._ "

"It's fine," Poe smiled. "I saw how uncomfortable you looked around them. They're _awful._ Anyway, we're probably not going to stay at the water park for long, and then we're eating dinner at a Steak'n'Shake, and then we're going home. Sound good?"

"Sounds good. Also, I have a question."

"Yeah?"

"What is it with you guys and Steak'n'Shake? I think your team tried to invite us there at the first competition too."

Poe laughed. "It's kind of a tradition with them apparently. Don't know the story behind it, but their milkshakes are good, so I just roll with it. You know?"

"I wish _we_ had a team tradition," Finn sighed. "But Hux only cares about team dynamics when they help us win. It's annoying."

Poe placed a hand on Finn's shoulder. "You're part of our traditions now," he decided. "And I'm sure that I speak for everyone here when I say that you're always welcome on our team."

 

A couple of hours later, when Finn's dad picked him up from the Steak'n'Shake, his Facebook was flooded with pictures of all the fun that he had had. It was sad to him how he had more photos with the River Ridge team in an hour than he had with the Gulfside team in two years. And what else was sad was that the next morning, while Finn was making himself a bowl of cereal, he got a call from Hux and visibly shuddered.

"Hello?" he said into the phone after building up the nerve for a couple of seconds to answer it.

"Eight-Seven, what is with your Facebook photos?"

Finn's eyes first widened in fear, then narrowed in defiance. "I went to the water park and then Steak'n'Shake with the River Ridge team."

There was silence after that, and all Finn could focus on was the ticking of the kitchen clock. It sounded eerily like a bomb.

"...I can tell _that,_ " Hux said eventually. "I just want to know _why you betrayed our team._ "

"Because of this exact mentality that you're showing now!" Finn burst out. "Everything to you is betraying the team. Being friendly to a different school that happens to be playing against us? _Betraying our team._ Choosing to go to the movies with my dad and my friend instead of practicing for one night? _Betraying our team._ Just because I wanted to relax and have fun with members of a different team doesn't mean I'm betraying ours. Sometimes I feel like you and everyone really need to just _chill. Out._ "

Finn took a deep breath of air and loosened the fist that he hadn't even realized he had been tightening. The clock ticked in time with his breaths as if it, too, was waiting for the leader's response.

"Okay. Fine. _FINE!_ If you're going to disrespect us so much, then why don't you just-"

He stopped. "No. You can't leave. You're one of our best players. But you must be punished for this betrayal and subsequent disrespect."

A full minute's pause, during which Finn poured the milk into his Corn Flakes and got a spoon from the drawer. Then, Hux's verdict.

"I will remove you from the Facebook group and block you from reentering, as well as forbid all of the team's members from speaking to you. I'm sure that they will be more than willing to agree. This punishment will last until the beginning of the next season, or until you send me a message apologizing and promising to not allow this to happen again. Understood?"

Finn was silent.

" _Understood?_ _"_

Finn swallowed the lump in his throat and nodded. "Understood."

"Good. I'm glad we managed to come to an agreement. Your punishment begins now."

_Click._

In spite of himself, Finn pressed his forehead to the wood of the kitchen table and sobbed.

 

Under the advice of both his moral principles and his two consultants - his dad and Rey - Finn refused to apologize to either Hux or his teammates. Instead, he reconnected with his other friends from school, spent more time doing the things he actually enjoyed, and, most importantly, hung out with the River Ridge Rebels.

Poe, who gleefully announced that he was gay while the group was hanging out at his house, was the third person to whom Finn came out as bi. The rest of the team, during a trip to the movies, was the next. And with them, Finn felt loved and accepted, more so than he had ever had with the team that was actually his.

And away from their pressures, he allowed himself to freely fall deeper and deeper in love with Poe Dameron. Which was why it hurt so much when wrestling season began again, he was added back into the Facebook group, and the Gulfside Stormtroopers readied themselves for battle once more.

Finn joined the team once more with nothing but reluctance, and he knew by the way that they pretended he didn't exist at the near-daily meets that that was also how they accepted him. But Hux paid no attention to these poisonous team dynamics, opting instead to aimlessly work the team harder.

Finn vented about this to Rey on the night before the team's first competition, when both were in her room, and he was braiding her hair while listening to her Spotify playlist. This act always helped de-stress both of them, and on this particular night, Finn desperately needed de-stressing.

"I don't want to fight anymore," he told her. "You know how I always used to enjoy wrestling, but our team has really ruined it for me."

"Well," Rey pointed out, "there are other sports in this school. You could always quit and join one of those. And even if you're too into wrestling to just quit like that-"

"I am."

"-then we're in our senior year. Soon we'll _be_ in college, so you won't have to worry about impressing them."

Finn laughed as he reached for a hairtie. "We can only hope, Rey. We can only hope."

 

First competition. Anger, determination, overwhelming loudness.

And fear. How will he face Poe, how will he _fight_ Poe, knowing that he loves him and that they must now be on opposing sides?

Finn moved through the warmups as if he were a ghost. Maybe he was. He might as well have been.

He was third in the lineups. Him and Poe Dameron.

"Don't fuck this up," Hux whispered, placing a forearm on his shoulder. " _Don't fuck this up._ "

Heart beating fast. Breaths coming quickly.

"Ready when you are," the announcer said through the microphone.

Finn would never be ready. But he had to be at least somewhat.

"I'm ready."

His body was limp. Poe Dameron looked at him weirdly as he flattened him to the ground with ease.

But Finn couldn't fight. He _couldn't._ He was too still, and the only thing running through his mind was how he couldn't hurt him.

Two minutes passed. And when the timer buzzed, Poe stood victorious but concerned, Finn stood satisfied yet scared, and the team stood on the bleachers with glares on their faces.

" _What_ is your _problem?_ " Hux hissed, grabbing Finn by the collar of his jersey and glaring directly into his eyes. "You may have just cost the team a win! Finn, you _failure,_ I _despise you right now._ "

Hux kept ranting, and although Finn looked around at his friends for support, they showed none. Something about Zeroes and Nines just standing there, just watching the scene play out without coming to Finn's defense, triggered something inside of him.

He shoved the team leader out of his way and stormed off, ignoring the shouts for him to come back, allowing them to fly past his ears and dissolve into the air. He changed into the clothes he had packed to trade in - a knit sweater and jeans - and threw the jersey almost directly into Hux's face.

"I quit," he hissed.

"You can't-"

"Yes, I can. And I'm doing it right now. I'm _sick_ of you putting me down for any possible mistake. I'm _sick_ of you mistreating me, of this entire team making me feel like a failure, of every single one of you bringing me down when I'm at my highest points. So _goodbye._ "

Bag in hand, Finn left the gym without a single glance back. Then, once he could freely look at his phone, he deleted the team members' contacts, smiling as he watched them disappear.

A couple of hours later, the teams left, and while the Gulfside team walked past him without a second thought, the River Ridge team stopped by and clapped him on the back in greeting.

And suddenly, Finn was filled with an intense determination. Today for him was a day of breaking expectations, and perhaps he would-

Yes.

"Poe," he said, pulling him aside slightly from the rest of the team.

"What is it?"

"I know this is kind of forward, but...will you go on a date with me?"

Heart beating fast, only not in a nervous way this time, but an excited one. And almost immediately, an answer, accompanied by a hand slipping around his waist and a palm cupping his neck.

"Yes."

 

**Epilogue: 3 Months Later**

_Ben Solo: Hey, Finn, you have your surprise for your boyfriend today, right?_

_To: Ben Solo: Yep :) We can hang out after that, don't worry :)_

_Ben Solo: Awesome, good luck my friend_

_To: Ben Solo: Thanks!_

_Ben Solo: No problem!_

Finn tucked his phone into the pocket of his suit and double checked that he had told Poe to wear his when he picked him up. He had been saving up for this restaurant reservation for three months, and he wasn't going to let _anything_ ruin this perfect date with his perfect boyfriend.

When his car pulled up on the driveway, Poe was already outside. They greeted each other with a hug and a kiss before getting into the car, Finn driving and occasionally making remarks. But other than that, their relationship worked so well that they could spend hours in complete silence, and it wouldn't seem awkward at all.

"So, what is this, sugarnugget?" Poe asked as Finn struggled to find a parking spot.

"It's a date."

"Well, obviously, but - _Whoa._ "

Poe finally thought to look up at their destination, and he gasped in sight when he saw that it was one of the highest-ranked restaurants in their city.

"Oh, Finn, you shouldn't have. This is _amazing,_ oh my goodness, how did I not know about this?"

"Of course I should have," Finn murmured, slipping his hand into Poe's. "You're my _boyfriend._ And the best one I'll ever know."

Poe leaned his head on Finn's shoulder as they walked into the restaurant together. "And I love you."

Finn wrapped an arm around his waist and pulled him closer until they were almost one. "I know."


End file.
